Parents, teachers and unionists denounce a deterioration in the working conditions of teachers in Bordeaux, with parents of students reduced to recruiting teachers for their children themselves.
Le Figaro Bordeaux
No teacher for my child. This is the title of the latest song by Bordeaux rapper A’Rieka, mathematics teacher in a college in Blanquefort (Gironde), whose video clip was made public on October 2. The rapper explains on social networks that “this song was born the day after a meeting where we saw 200 parents worried about the future of their children”. The song is dedicated to “all the students who are missing a teacher” and to their “worried parents”. Partly thanks to this clip, a teacher was able to take up his duties in the establishment a few days later.
At the Léonard Lenoir college in Bordeaux, some parents tried another method, by creating a job offer themselves to find a part-time French teacher to teach two classes of 4e and 3e of the establishment. “As the Academy has been struggling to recruit for our children since last year, we, parents, are taking this search into our own hands”details the job offer, which is aimed at a graduate in modern literature or a retiree from National Education looking for additional income.
A job offer criticized by the National Union of Secondary Education (SNES-FSU) of Gironde, for which publishing such an offer would amount to stating that “the destruction of the public national education service is underway”. Yet an isolated case, according to Maitane Cocagne, deputy general secretary and spokesperson for SNES-FSU in Bordeaux. “Fortunately this type of case is rare, because the employer is the rectorate and it is important that it remains like that, to guarantee a level of public service”. However, “when parents take up the issue, things move a little faster, unfortunately”recognizes the trade unionist.
“Degraded” working conditions
Denouncing the working conditions of replacement staff “considerably degraded in the Bordeaux academy since the start of the school year”several replacement teachers accompanied by the SNES-FSU obtained an audience with the rectorate on Wednesday, in order to share their concerns. While these replacements, starters or not, should have known this summer where they were going to be placed, “the rectorate noted in July that there would be vacant positions at the start of the school year, since it refused to assign replacements who were available”says Maitane Cocagne.
The Bordeaux union representative deplores a real “institutional violence and brutality, which might not have happened if it had been anticipated”explaining that “in many disciplines, TZR [titulaires sur zone de remplacement] are unable to obtain permanent positions and we find ourselves faced with a triple problem: the lack of teachers – due to the lack of opening of positions for competitive examinations and the lack of attractiveness of the profession -, more difficult conditions, and the fact that they cannot obtain permanent positions”.
70 job offers from the Bordeaux academy would concern “currently vacant positions including 37 which are vacant until the end of the year”deplores Maitane Cocagne, that is to say “that there is a shortage of at least 37 teachers in five departments in positions that should have been planned for a long time”. The Academy indicates, however, that 97% of positions in Gironde would be filled, that “for others, replacement is the subject of all the attention of the rectorate service”and that “all the absences of teachers who [leur] are raised are subject to treatment with the establishment of a substitute or the rapid search for a contract teacher if [leur] pool does not make it possible to respond immediately to demand”.
